Honestly, it's currently one of the thing that might make me leave the game. I play on a decently sized realm (Zul'jin) so I never had trouble meeting people, unless I played in the middle of the night, I would always cross paths with 2 or 3 other players even in the most remote of zones, and I liked it that way.

Now, one of the things I love the most about the game is leveling alts. I love to see the character progress and I like questing. But CRZ just made it unpleasant. I used to meet 2 or 3 other players and it was enjoyable. I tried doing Jintha'alor in the Hinterlands, there were sixteen of us running in circles for the same ten mobs with two of those groups having people lvl 70+ one-shotting the mobs, a couple of people doing archeology (and killing the mobs). That one quest (Start Taking Back) ended up taking me three hours...

I do not live in the middle of the desert, I'm not starved for virtual social interaction. I loved meeting some people out in the world, but to have a bunch of people crammed like that in the middle of zones that should be remote and out of the way just completely breaks immersion (not to mention the fact that spending thrice as long on quests isn't particularly enjoyable, I do not want to make new friends, I want to see some progress on my character). There shouldn't be twenty mercenaries running around Skulk Rock.

I understand that it might be nice for people who played on dead servers, they get to see some new faces. But why did they feel the need to add this to realms who already have an High population is beyond me.

I'm a longtime altaholic and a BIG fan of how much livelier the 1-60 world is these days. I think it's a combination of CRZ and the 1-60 revamp being successful as I see many more players leveling from my home realm than I ever saw in the past in addition to cross realmers.

There's an interesting difference between the Horde and Alliance experience in the RP-PvP group though. Leveling Horde is a pretty peaceful experience but when playing Alliance the ganking is horrendous. This is perpetuated by a handful of Horde guilds, and one in particular on my server - overall, this sense of danger and frustration is exactly why I rolled on PvP in the first place but sheesh, sometimes there can be entire zones on lockdown with more 90 Horde patrolling on their flying mounts than Alliance of any level. I can imagine a lot of players would get frustrated by that and give up, especially if they're from a different realm.

Another interesting feature of CRZ in the RP-PvP group is the chance to observe crossrealm RP events out in the world. I've seen a couple from different realms in recent days. I don't participate in them they can be cool to watch. (In before RP-related beratement posts.)

I think mergers should be the real ultimate solution but I'm a little apprehensive about being left out since I'm from a "high" population realm. But I rolled on a High pop realm because I wanted to see people in the world! So I hope the eventual fix doesn't end up leaving currently Low-pop realms feeling more populated than currently High-pop realms.

The only negative I can think of right now is the rare farming, it is harder when you share the spawns with other realms. Other than that I can't think of anything wrong with CRZ and I have not experienced anything bad with it. I don't understand what the fuss is about.

Now, one of the things I love the most about the game is leveling alts. I love to see the character progress and I like questing. But CRZ just made it unpleasant. I used to meet 2 or 3 other players and it was enjoyable. I tried doing Jintha'alor in the Hinterlands, there were sixteen of us running in circles for the same ten mobs with two of those groups having people lvl 70+ one-shotting the mobs, a couple of people doing archeology (and killing the mobs). That one quest (Start Taking Back) ended up taking me three hours...

I do not live in the middle of the desert, I'm not starved for virtual social interaction. I loved meeting some people out in the world, but to have a bunch of people crammed like that in the middle of zones that should be remote and out of the way just completely breaks immersion (not to mention the fact that spending thrice as long on quests isn't particularly enjoyable, I do not want to make new friends, I want to see some progress on my character). There shouldn't be twenty mercenaries running around Skulk Rock.

I understand that it might be nice for people who played on dead servers, they get to see some new faces. But why did they feel the need to add this to realms who already have an High population is beyond me.

Can anyone verify whether or not these are reasonable anecdotes? It sounds like hyperbole to me but I'm not sure if perhaps other CRZ groups are this dramatically busier than my own. I'm thinking of rolling on another server to check out the CRZ elsewhere actually - any recommendations for the "worst" (busiest/most heavily populated) CRZ servers?

Shudders as memories of 6 panadarians waiting in line outside a barn in westfall for respawns.
Wonder when they'll release more details on virtual realms, and which realms will get virtual realmed with each other.
Surely, they couldn't be so dumb enough to throw high/full pop realms into the mix too, can they ?

CRZ is my most hated feature in WoW of all time (been playing since around the end of '05). The worst part of the feature is the inability to TURN IT OFF!!!!! I have always loved this game and have never lapsed in my subscription, but this feature brings out such hatred from within and leaves a tarnish that can't be cleaned.

I totally enjoy trying to kill 10 mobs for a quest when there are only 5 spawns and they are being camped by 4 other players....

I enjoy how it seems that just as I get in reach of an herb I hacked and slashed my way to, some dbag from another realm swoops down and grabs the herb.....oh ppl from my server can do it to?....not as likely cuz there weren't as many ppl doing it prior to CRZ.

I enjoy never seeing rare spawns anymore! I don't have to worry about clearing my cache anymore either! Oh wait...yes I do...if I happen to take a flight path...Thankfully I finished the rare achievements for BC and LK right before CRZ was released.

I've really enjoyed all the new griefers I've met! It's amazing how such a wonderful feature can bring the creme de la creme together!

Merging people in the world is a detriment to the gaming experience of those who have enjoyed WoW's gameplay over the past several years. All it does is make people hostile towards one another. It does not build a sense of community. It does not help with questing since there are no elite quests anymore. If I'm on a toon that can heal, I will still watch people die so I have a little time without them interfering with my quests. If there's a tank toon gathering up all the quest mobs for aoe, I will attempt to (and occassionally succeed) wipe him by training a lot more adds on him. It makes rare spawns retardedly rare and the normal camping sites now look like refuge camps.

Srsly...I WOULD PAY TO TURN OFF CRZ! If Blizzard added that next to the +XP potion in the in-game store, I would buy all. I'm willing to bet that Blizz would make a killing off that if they sold it!! I wouldn't even be mad....it'd be one of those "shut up and take my money" moments...lol

Oh...and I find arguments that say I shouldn't play an MMO if I don't like what CRZ has brought to WoW retarded. I've liked the game just the way it's been for years! Now I should go find another game cuz some knuckle dragger at Blizzard decided we needed to see more ppl in the world without a thought of consequence? Pfft...ok. Give me the option to turn it off and I'll never have another bad thing to say about CRZ again. It don't get no simpler than that.

If happy cows make great cheese, then do the emo ones make sour cream?

The idea behind CRZ is awesome. Being able to group with friends from different realms is good and I like it.
However, it should be optional. I don't care about some random guy from Dentarg or Alonsus or who knows what realm they're from, if I wanted to play there I would've made a character there and do so myself.
Apparently next patch is only making it worse.

Part of me wishes they'd swallow their pride and just merge the servers already (and I mean actually merge them, not this virtual bandaid nonsense they've got planned or the CRZ nonsense). I don't mind sharing resources with people, but when the resources are going to another realm entirely I start to get peeved. Honestly, CRZ was great in theory, but in practice it's a mess. The only thing I see it benefiting is world PVP, and even that is only for gankfesting from everything I read. I play on PVE servers so really, the only thing it does is hurt me. I don't group with other people while questing because there's really no need to, and it generally makes questing take longer if you do. And don't feed me that "if you want to play alone then why are you playing an MMO" nonsense; solo play is a completely valid playstyle in MMOs, deal with it (different story for group content, obviously; I'm not expecting to solo raids, at least not anywhere near current tiers).

I don't like it because I play on a Latin Server and CRZ has demolished our server community.

Latin American realms were probably the closest you would still find to how Vanilla and TBC, in that people shunned LFD/LFR because of the language barrier, and preferred to do groups the old fashioned way by grouping in chat and walking to instances. Everybody knew everybody on the server and your reputation was a big deal. I didn't play back in Vanilla/TBC, but I guess it's how a lot of people describe how WoW used to be.

Anyway, along comes CRZ and all of a sudden we're all scattered to different zones all over the place and it pretty much wrecked it all. I guess it's kind of sad for some people, but the last bastion of "old school WoW" was pretty much gone at that point.

I miss how Quel'Thalas used to be, but whatever, things change and not always for the better. I wish they would give Latin servers an opt-out for CRZ, but then if they did it for us then everybody would want it, so I understand why they can't.

But they don't make merging with PvP servers optional. RP/Normal servers merge with them in zones.. If we do a BG and come out, there's 60% chance that there's a ganker that'll take your time, killing you until your debuff is gone.

But they don't make merging with PvP servers optional. RP/Normal servers merge with them in zones.. If we do a BG and come out, there's 60% chance that there's a ganker that'll take your time, killing you until your debuff is gone.